


Father to his Men

by Donna_Immaculata



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fatherhood, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Religious Discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 21:33:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2888663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donna_Immaculata/pseuds/Donna_Immaculata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It isn’t fair that Armand has been taken away from him, leaving him all alone, alone to carry the burden of the crown and alone to walk these dark corridors at night, all the way to where Armand lies in state.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Father to his Men

It is not often that Louis the Just feels small and insignificant. His Most Catholic Majesty, ruler of the greatest European empire and scion of the noble House of Bourbon, is not a man given to humility and diffidence. There is no-one that stands above him, no-one but God.

Tonight, he is aware of God’s presence. It fills his head and soul just as it fills the vast dark vault above his head, and it strikes terror in his heart. What has he done to offend God our Father so that He took Armand away from him? It isn’t _fair_ , and he trembles when those blasphemous thoughts manifest themselves in his mind, and he stomps his feet extra hard as he walks, it isn’t _fair_ that Armand has been taken away from him, leaving him all alone, alone to carry the burden of the crown and alone to walk these dark corridors at night, all the way to where Armand lies in state.

He dismisses his attendants with an impatient wave of his hand once he reaches to door guarded by one of his faithful musketeers. The man’s face is stony and he’s looking straight ahead, and were it not for a sudden flicker of eye as it darts to the King’s face and away, Louis would not have noticed that anything is amiss. One musketeer on guard. One. There should be two.

But the door has been thrown open for him and he has crossed the threshold already, and it wouldn’t befit him to turn around to berate the man. He will have Treville brought before him tomorrow. This act of… of mutiny has to be dealt with firmly. It would not have happened under Armand.

He strides over to the coffin, his hands clenched by his sides, anger and fear and longing rising up his throat, and once they’ll reach his mouth he knows he will groan with pain. He doesn’t like feeling like this. The last time he felt like this was when Anne was in danger. But she was returned to him. Armand is gone forever.

The pain reaches his mouth and escapes as a sob, and Louis presses both hands to his mouth. Something stirs in the darkness behind the guttering candles, there, where the coffin stands. There is one mad moment where Louis’ heart stops, because God has answered his prayers and has brought Armand back. A man rises, and takes shape as he gets to his feet, sheathed in a cloak and shadows.

“Your Majesty,” he says calmly and bows, briefly and not deep enough, and Louis recognises him as one of his musketeers.

“Monsieur Aramis,” he says in a voice that breaks like that of a boy. But the musketeer doesn’t appear to notice. He stands, watching him calmly across the coffin, and doesn’t speak.

“You should be out there standing guard,” Louis continues.

“Yes,” the man says. “My apologies, Your Majesty.” He bows again and steps around the coffin with the intention to make for the door, but Louis stops him by raising his hand.

“Stay,” he says. The musketeer stops and inclines his head again. “You were praying,” Louis says, looking him up and down.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

For the first time, the impassive mask slips off the musketeer’s face. Louis watches confusion and pain flicker across his features. It is intriguing. This is the first time since Armand’s death that Louis feels an interest in somebody else’s feelings. 

“We were under the impression that His Eminence did not have a great friend in you,” he adds.

The musketeer’s gaze shifts away and then returns to Louis’ face. “He was a man of God,” the man says in a tone that implies that this is all the justification that his conduct requires.

“And a servant of France,” Louis hears himself say.

“Yes,” the man says softly. “As are we all.” He falls silent again and his face closes, and he watches Louis with an expression that Louis can’t read. He can’t see the musketeer’s eyes properly.

“Come closer,” he says. The musketeer moves towards him obediently, holding his hat to his chest in a supplicant gesture, and his footsteps echo on the flagstones and reverberate through the chamber. He doesn’t stop until Louis raises his hand, his palm turned outward. The musketeer’s eyes are very dark; they appear to swallow all light and don’t let anything out, but Louis is sure that he can read something in those fathomless depths, something that makes him ask a question that is as surprising to himself as it is to the musketeer.

“Do you believe in God?” The man frowns and opens his mouth as if to speak, but Louis ignores it. “We are familiar with the new-fangled notion put forward by the heretics that He may not exist. And sometimes, in the dead of the night… But if He doesn’t exist, who put us on the throne?” 

“He does exist,” the musketeer says. “It is by His ordinance that Your Majesty rules over us like a father.”

“What if we don’t want to be a father?” Louis whispers, bowing his head under the weight of his own words. “What if we are but a boy, trapped in a king’s life?”

He sees the man reach out as if to touch Louis’ arm, but he jerks his hand back instantly. Louis raises his bent head and looks up at him. “You may touch us,” he says. He’s cold, there’s a chill in the air and there’s a chill in his bones, and he hears the musketeer gasp softly and feels the man’s hand alight on his arm, sword-trained fingers clasping him firmly. It is not an embrace, a musketeer will not embrace his King. Yet it is warmth and comfort, and it is more than Louis has felt in a long time. Anne reached out to him after Armand’s death, but he shrugged her off. Nobody touches him but Anne, not like this, like a friend. They clothe him and brush him and guard him with their bodies and their lives, but nobody ever touches him. Armand didn’t, either, but Armand didn’t have to. “We have lost our father again,” Louis says, because the sadness that fills his heart hurts so much, and he thinks that it will drown him from the inside out if he doesn’t let some of it spill out. “It’s not fair,” he adds and resist the urge to stamp his foot.

“Yes, I know,” the musketeer says and glances over at the coffin. “But Your Majesty is going to… be a father himself now.” There is a hitch in his voice, as if he feared that Louis is going to remonstrate him for the indelicacy of his words. And he should, the man is talking to him in a much too familiar manner.

Instead, Louis feels himself smile, even though there are tears in his eyes. “Yes,” he nods, and he looks the musketeer straight in the eye, happiness and sadness churning like sea foam in a whirlpool. “Yes, we are.” The hand on his arm tenses, fingers clutching him tightly, and Louis understands. His faithful musketeers share his joy, and this man… Aramis is among the most faithful.

“We have never expressed our gratitude after you brought Her Majesty back safely, Monsieur Aramis,” Louis says. He pulls a ring off his finger and puts it into Aramis’ palm. “Your service to your King will not be forgotten.”

Aramis stares at the token of his monarch’s gratitude as if it were a bomb about to go off, and Louis touches his hand and closes his fingers around it. Aramis’ fingers are colder even than his own, and he permits his hand to linger until he feels his skin tingle as warmth trickles back into them. The moment he lifts his hand off Aramis’, Aramis draws a deep shaky breath and raises his eyes to his King’s face. “Thank you,” he says softly, takes a step back and bows – a perfect bow and scrape, with his left arm behind his back and the right hand pressed to his chest. “Your Majesty.”

Louis stretches out his hand and Aramis kisses it.

“We have lost our most beloved servant,” Louis says in a voice that barely shakes. “But we believe we have gained one just as devoted. You will not disappoint us.”

“No.” Aramis straightens up and looks at him, and it is almost insolent, that straight, unwavering gaze levelled at his monarch’s face, but Louis’ heart is full of truly kingly mercy tonight. “Your Majesty will always have the most loyal and faithful servant in me.”

Louis acknowledges his words with a royal incline of the head, pulls out his handkerchief and dabs at his eyes, turning away from Aramis. “You may go,” he says, waving his handkerchief at him as he walks towards the coffin. Armand’s face is like that of a wax doll’s, and for a moment the candlelight makes it appear animated, as though the imperious spirit still lived in that body that appears so much frailer in death than it ever was in life. The echo of his musketeer’s footsteps fades away, and then the door opens and closes.

The King is alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Quickly getting a Louis-centric fic out there before the start of season 2. I like Louis and have thoughts on him, about the impact of Richelieu's death on him and what the baby situation means for his character, [here on Tumblr](http://donnaimmaculata.tumblr.com/post/106225293281/moonmission-can-i-ship-them-i-feel-i-should).


End file.
